2010 Premier Gear Awards

Moog MF-105M MIDI MuRF
Who, apart from the grumpiest
music purist, doesn’t love a
Moog? From the earliest gigantic
monster synths to the newest
Moogerfooger pedals, Bob Moog’s
creations, and those of the company
that now bears his name, have
helped create some of the most
original music ever recorded. With
the Moogerfooger MF-105M Midi
MuRf (May 2010), Moog shares the
wealth of extreme tone-tweaking
experience with guitarists again.
And for those bold enough to wade into these waters, the rewards
are bountiful—if twisted—indeed. The MF-105M Midi MuRF is a
multiple resonance filer array, which is likely alien speak to anyone
apart from dedicated synth heads. In simpler terms, the Midi MuRF
enables you to create everything from subtle, frequency-specific
modulation effects to cranium-twisting, space-time-folding LFO
effects. The MIDI capabilities—too deep to list here—enable interfacing
with sequencers, drum machines, and other MIDI devices, as
well as activation of filters if you have a pickup-to-MIDI interface.
Reviewer Brian Barr “had great fun creating everything from choppy
rhythms to resonant soundscapes” using the Midi MuRF. The worlds
you’ll create are likely limitless.Street $459moogmusic.comStrymon El Capistan dTape Echo
The bias against digital stompboxes has
faded in recent years. But the Strymon
El Capistan (November 2010) may have
what it takes to knock down the very
last bricks in that wall of resistance. It
ambitiously attempts to deliver every
possible permutation of sound that you
could get out of an old analog tape
echo machine—from the aural irregularities
and glorious signal degradation to
the quirks of multiple playback heads—
in a single DSP-based stompbox. And the extent to which it succeeds
is amazing. One of the beautiful things about the El Capistan is that it
emulates the analog charms of tape echoes and gives players access
to crystalline digital delay colors with equal aplomb. And it enables
variations on the two that are damn near otherworldly. You could spend
years exploring the El Capistan and never uncover every flavor of delay
within. In comparing the El Capistan with a vintage version of the legendary
Roland Space Echo, reviewer Jordan Wagner found that “the
pedal’s feel, response, and overall tone were often every bit as musical
and organic as its venerable ancestor.” He also discovered that when
he “needed a little more clarity to go with the irregularities and character,
the El Cap delivered in ways the Space Echo could not approach.”
If this pedal doesn’t sell you on what DSP can do, we don’t know what
will. But for the open-minded, the El Capistan might just extend their
playing voice to an intergalactic level.Street $299strymon.net
TC Electronic PolyTune
Beyond making sure a tuner works
accurately and is legible in performance
conditions, few of us give much thought
to that unremarkable but indispensible
box at the head of our pedalboard. It’s
safe to assume that even fewer of us sit
around waiting for a minor revolution in
tuning pedals. But players of all stripes
sat up and took notice this year when
TC Electronic delivered the PolyTune
(April 2010). If you’ve never been jazzed
about a tuner, this little number will likely change that. What makes the
PolyTune different are its polyphonic capabilities. It can detect pitch for
all six strings—simultaneously—as well as display whether they’re flat or
sharp and register your corrections on the fly with an automatic switch
to monophonic or single-string mode. For anyone who has ever heard
their tuning go sour on stage and not been certain of the culprit, the
PolyTune has the potential to save a lot of time and embarrassment.
And while, for now, it only works in standard tuning (which can be transposed
down by as much as a fourth to accommodate dropped and B-B
baritone tunings), the PolyTune has already drastically changed the way
many players tune onstage—and its USB port enables you to download
future software updates (including new tuning compatibilities) from TC.Street $99tcelectronic.com

Taylor Baritone 8-String Acoustic
One of Taylor’s first big breakthroughs
came via the magic of octave strings,
most specifically when Neil Young took
the stage on his well-documented Rust
Never Sleeps tour with a 12-string
from the then-new company. So it’s no
surprise that, three-plus decades later,
the little San Diego luthierie outfit that
became a guitar industry giant is still
dabbling with the expressive potential
of octave strings. And with the 8-String
Baritone (January 2010)—which features
octaves on just the third and fourth
strings—Taylor proves they’re still willing
to dabble with unconventional instruments.
Gayla Drake Paul, despite having
a declared reticence to fool with the
extra-long scale of a baritone, found it
“extremely ergonomic” and even “cuddly.”
And predictably, this big Taylor
turned out to be a harmonic-hurling
tone monster. Paul found that flatpicking
brought out “a lovely, warm-but-shiny sound, like polished gold
at sunset,” and that fingerstyle work could be easily colored with
octave accents without overpowering a tune. Most of all, Paul found
the Taylor 8-String Baritone “endlessly inspiring.” And what more
could any of us ask from a guitar, no matter how many strings?Street $3199taylorguitars.com

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